The Inner Critic: The Quiet Violence We Learn to Live With

Nicole Dickmann
Nov 20
3 min read

Most of us know the voice.

The one that tells you to be smaller. Quieter. Better.

The one that whispers you’re not enough or you’re too much or you should have known better. It can feel like a constant commentary on your worth, tightening around your chest before you even realise it’s there.

We don’t often talk about the violence of that voice, because honestly, most of us don’t recognise it as abuse. We hear it and assume it’s just part of who we are. We think it’s always been there. We think - it’s simply me. When something has spoken inside us for so long, it becomes familiar. And familiar things feel true, even when they’re hurting us.

We grow accustomed to flinching on the inside. We brace at the first sign of criticism, sometimes before the world has even opened its mouth. And over time, we learn to shut it out. To pretend it doesn’t hurt. To push it down until it becomes background noise beneath the rest of our life.

Eventually, we start gaslighting ourselves. We say things like, “It’s not that bad.” “Everyone talks to themselves like this.” “It’s just how I motivate myself.”

But not everyone does. And even if they did, that doesn’t make it kind or true.

This internal harshness isn’t something we’re born with. It’s something we inherit from the worlds we grow up in. As David Bedrick often teaches, the critic is shaped by the environments that formed us. It’s stitched together from moments of shame, unmet needs, social pressure, family dynamics, schoolyard cruelties, cultural expectations and the silent rules we learned in order to be acceptable.

For some people, the inner critic is linked to trauma or long-term stress. When life feels unpredictable or unsafe, the mind tightens its grip. It creates rules, punishments and impossible standards. It believes if it can perfect you, it can protect you.

But perfection isn’t protection. It’s paralysis.

And this is where the deeper work begins.

A gentle turning toward yourself

The inner critic doesn’t soften through willpower. If you’ve ever raised your voice at a child and told them to stop the incessant noise, you’ll know it rarely works. They don’t suddenly settle because your shout won't resonate. It didn’t meet the real need underneath. It didn’t soothe the hurt at the core of the noise in the first place.

Our inner critic works in the same way. When we try to silence it with force, it often gets louder. What softens it is understanding what lives beneath the noise.

In Process Work, we don’t assume the critic is good or bad. We don’t bypass it with positivity or attack it with discipline. We get curious. We listen. We stay with what’s actually happening and allow the lived experience to reveal what’s true.

There’s always something beneath the critic. Sometimes it’s protective. Sometimes it’s harmful. Sometimes it’s repeating what was done to you. Sometimes it’s a younger part that adapted to survive.

When you learn to meet your inner critic with awareness instead of avoidance, something begins to shift. You develop an internal steadiness that can’t be taken away.

This is the heart of the work I do with clients — and it’s exactly what we’ll be exploring in the Inner Critic Workshop on Sunday 30th November 2025.

An Invitation

If you’re reading this and recognising yourself, know this: you’re not meant to navigate your inner world alone. You deserve support that’s steady, attuned and grounded in real experience.

If you want to explore this work, you’re warmly invited to join the upcoming Inner Critic Workshop.

Reclaiming the inner space

When you start to notice the bracing, the shrinking, the breath you lose when the critic speaks, that’s the beginning of change. Awareness breaks the spell. Presence interrupts the old patterns.

The goal isn’t to get rid of the critic. The goal is to no longer be ruled by it.

When inner violence is met with inner presence, something opens. Space. Choice. Self-leadership.

A return to the parts of you that were never broken.

Your inner world was never meant to be a battleground. It can become a place of listening, clarity, and transformation. A place where the truth of who you are has room to breathe again.